Tag: Gallery

“Maui has its fair share of galleries specializing in art that showcases the beauty of our island paradise. Realistic depictions of splashing humpback whales, sunsets, tropical flowers and other island scenes are abundant and well represented. Abstract art is not nearly as well represented.

One gallery that specializes in abstract contemporary art is Paia Contemporary Gallery at 83 Hana Highway. Created by a core group of Hawaii artists, alongside national, and international established talents, will present a new show with an artist reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturday.

The featured artists are Jessica Drenk, abstract sculptor from South Carolina; Joseph Segal, abstract sculptor from Florida; and Al Schwartz, a Maui abstract artist who has turned to contemporary painting after a long history in ceramics.

For the last 15 years, Schwartz has collected certain minerals from the clays on the island. He has now found a way to incorporate those same minerals into his paintings, giving an earthly sheen to these modern color fields.

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Drenk works with everyday items, objects of modern society, and turns them into something iconic. Pencils, toilet paper, books, ear buds, PVC pipe these are some of the elements Drenk masterfully transforms, to gracefully enter the realm of fine art.

“By transforming familiar objects into nature-inspired forms and patterns, I examine how we classify the world around us,” says Drenk. “Manufactured goods appear as natural objects, something functional becomes something decorative, a simple material is made complex, and the commonplace becomes unique.”

Segal’s honors include the Historic Preservation Award from the City of Jacksonville, multiple Artistic Enhancement Grants from the State of Florida and multiple Fostering Vitality in the Arts Grants from the Jacksonville Community Foundation. His work has been featured in over 150 solo and group exhibitions in public buildings and national galleries since 1993.

“I impose a geometric composition on natural materials to examine our relationship with the environment,” says Segal. “A need for order is balanced with a desire for deeper understanding of the essence of the elements that I work with. I use processes and finishes that either obscure or illuminate the nature of these materials to reiterate the divergence within these concepts.”

“Paia Contemporary Gallery will unveil its first 2012 exhibition featuring new works by award-winning artists Michael Kessler of Santa Fe, N.M., and McKay Otto of Wimberly, Texas. A public reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday; the show continues through April 4.

Both painters are recognized in the U.S. and abroad, and their pieces have been shown in scores of exhibitions.

Kessler’s awards include the Rome Prize for Painting from the American Academy in Rome in 1990 and a Pollock/Krasner Award in Painting in 1992. His work has been featured in 150 solo exhibitions since 1983, and his paintings appear in more than 20 U.S. museum collections, including the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

“I see my work as a metaphor for nature – about wondering how it (nature) got that way, realizing that we may never find out,” Kessler said in a gallery release.

Otto’s work has been featured in more than 90 exhibitions nationally and internationally since 1989. His awards and grants include the 2008 Hunting Art Prize finalist, and he is one of only two artists mentored by famous abstract reductionist Agnes Martin.

McKay Otto's "Ever Cicle Around Ever"

“This current body of work may serve as a metaphor for humanity’s capacity to transcend itself,” Otto said in the release.

Gallery director Lauren Harris said both artists will create a not-to-miss experience for viewers: “These artists ask us to look deeper . . . into nature, into ourselves, and into the work that has transpired from inspiration.”

Paia Contemporary Gallery, which holds tri-annual receptions, specializes in abstract, contemporary artwork created by a core group of Hawaii artists, alongside national, and international established talents. The gallery, open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and by appointment, is located at 83 Hana Highway. Call 579-8444 or visit www.paiacontemporarygallery.com.”

Abstract Ceramic Sculptures by Stephen Freedman

“Paia Contemporary Gallery will present the abstract ceramic sculptures by master ceramist Stephen Freedman of Hawaii island during its December 2011 Exhibition. The show opens with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday and continues through Jan. 18.

The exhibition will also include new abstract paintings by Maui’s Akira Iha, Oahu’s Mary Mitsuda and Vancouver’s Scott Plear.

The abstract ceramic sculptures by Mr. Freedman have been featured in more than 100 exhibitions since 1983 and has been included in public collections such as the Getty Museum, West Australian Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Boston. The artist is also the chief editor of HI ART Magazine, Hawaii’s contemporary art publication. Many of Freedman’s concepts are rooted in his childhood in South Africa.

“My mother’s interest in pottery began in Africa, offering me medium; while my father, a biologist, worked with now mythological figures in the field of human evolutionary study,”?Freedman said in a release. “His pursuit of these evolutionary principles imprinted the way I subsequently perceive the world and my abstract ceramic sculpures.”

“Be illuminated with the new works of Germany-based artist Udo Noger, along with fresh pieces by Bill Moore and David Ivan Clark, of California, and Randall Reid, of Texas.

Noger, who’s preparing for an August solo exhibition at The Contemporary Museum on Oahu, will introduce his work, which focuses on light as a medium, at Paia Contemporary Gallery on the north shore during a talk at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Noger “is highly recognized as one of the most exciting international contemporary artists currently,” gallery director Lauren Harris said. “He works with ‘light as his medium,’ taking the world of painting into the next dimension, and challenging the viewer to be still, as the works breathe life on their own.”

Gleiches - by Udo Noger

The four-man exhibition features new work by the artists. The show opens Saturday and continues through Aug. 15. Reid will speak about his work at 6:30 p.m.

Moore works with layers on layers of acrylic on canvas. His mastery of the medium and ever-transcendent perspective makes his work a tangible experience, according to a gallery release.

“We live in hurried times and are inundated with countless images,” Moore said in a release. “We have the capacity to immediately access a staggering wealth of information. Through my art, I am asking myself and those who would explore it, to slow down, look, touch and consider the essential colors, shapes, and textures that can feed our souls.”

Clark, who paints predominantly in oils and alkyd on stainless steel, was recently selected to show his works in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Originally from the plains of western California, his works reflect a timeless and seamless abstract landscape.

“My paintings hover in the space between romantic landscape and weathered industrial artifact,”?he said. “Dwelling in limbo, each marks the spot where nostalgia collides with fact, where celebration and elegy converge.”

Reid is known for his found objects. Treasures and remnants gleaned from travels and everyday life are recreated into windows of time. Immeasurable craftsmanship fusing metal and wood, silently whispering tales of their own history, in these ancient contemporary wall hangings.

“Just as our personal history is shaped by our memories, so is my art,”?Reid said. “The memories are evoked by the textures I create, and they reside within the materials as well.”

De la Tierra - by artist Randall Reid

Noger is often considered one of the great pioneers in contemporary arts today, Harris said. His white-on-white series spans more than a decade, and each piece hums in life within the canvas, according to a gallery release.

“I cut out parts of the paintings to use the light itself to paint light,” Noger said. “You cannot touch the inside of my painting but you can feel it.”

The Saturday talks are free and open to the public. No official opening is slated; call to schedule a guided walkthrough.

When Alejandro Goya opened the Paia Contemporary Gallery in 2007, the Buenos Aires native delivered a shot of sophistication to Maui’s tiny hippie town. Abstract art may not be what most tourists expect to discover along the Hana Highway, but serious collectors quickly ferreted out the minimalist showroom, awarding Goya and fellow artists exhibits in New York and coveted spots in permanent museum collections.” Paia is a door to the world,” says Goya. “It looks mellow and quaint, but you’ve got major corporation owners and movie producers here. I don’t have to go anywhere, they come to me.” For those who can’t make the trip to Maui, his first book, Paia Contemporary Gallery Book, is scheduled for publication in early 2011. The 41-year-old painter-turned-curator logged time in Boston, Miami and Los Angeles before settling into Maui’s mellow North Shore. An avid windsurfer, Goya gladly abandoned skyscrapers for the slow pace of paradise. “ The less distractions I have, the more I get done,” he says. “I used to drive three hours a day in Los Angeles. Here, I don’t put 2,000 miles a year on my car. The health food store, the beach and my gallery are all a block away.” And when funky Paia feels too metropolitan, he and his brother, world-champion windsurfer Francisco Goya, caravan down to Punta San Carlos, Mexico, where they sleep in tents and surf mile-long waves. Goya’s paintings reflect his immediate surroundings. “I really enjoy how nature affects what man has created,” he says. “When working on my abstract art I stay away from glossiness. Nature doesn’t put a gloss on things.”

Luna Series #34 – by artist Alejandro Goya

For more information on Alejandro Goya and his abstract art, click here For more information on Hawaii Modern Luxury, click here

IT was just after 10 a.m. and the Paia Contemporary Gallery was getting ready to open. The sun was streaming through the glass storefront, giving everything inside a warm glow. Alejandro Goya, the gallery’s owner, was adjusting a small glass sculpture just a fraction of an angle.

“I’m interested in abstract art, as you can tell,” said Mr. Goya, who was surrounded by crisp white walls and vaguely figurative sculptures, some costing a few thousand dollars. But any notion that this was a high-priced gallery in a big city was punctured when a group of surfers walked past the front door — barefoot, boards under their arms, and wetsuits unzipped to their waists.

Surfing and art mingle a lot in Paia — a blink-and-you-miss-it town — on the north shore of Maui. For years, this old Hawaiian sugar town has been a respite for stoners, surfers and, according to many locals, a certain low-key breed of celebrities like Willie Nelson, the Doobie Brothers, Woody Harrelson and Kris Kristofferson.

In recent years, however, the chill surfer vibe has been joined by a buzzing art scene, with a half-dozen new galleries representing artists like Mary Mitsuda, David Ivan Clark and Udo Nöger. Their works have not only attracted the attention of the international art-collecting crowd, who come here on spending holidays, but also that of major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Meanwhile, boho-chic hotels and fancy farm-to-table restaurants have opened, and a different caliber of tourist (as in the wealthy, art-buying caliber) has started turning Paia into an unlikely destination for contemporary art.

“You have all that exotica, these wonderful restaurants and top-notch galleries,” said Michael Kessler, an artist who lives in Santa Fe but recently had his first show in Paia. “I don’t know any other place like it.”

Paia Contemporary Gallery opened two years ago, the brainchild of artists Alejandro Goya and Kenn Briner. Their aim was to offer a space exhibiting works from an art-centered, rather than commercial, mindset.

“This gallery has a very different feel and look. The art is not jammed; it’s displayed in a more respectful way,” Goya says.

Longtime Maui artist Ben Kikuyama says Paia Contemporary has the feel of a Chelsea, N.Y., gallery: “an open room with white walls, stark, but everything is about the art.”

Kikuyama, a contemporary artist who’s worked full time on his art since 1986, has been extensively involved in Maui’s art community. He says he’s crossing his fingers that Goya and Briner succeed, because “Maui has a stigma for commercial work.”

“I hope they can bring up the awareness of the level of work being produced on this island,” Kikuyama says. “Alejandro has a pretty good eye for talent and work. One of the things I’m excited about is that they’re bringing in a good selection of contemporary work. It’s hard to find nonrepresentational contemporary art in this state.”

This month the gallery features the paintings of Maui’s Tony Walholm, president of Ebb and Flow Arts, and Florida’s Babette Herschberger.

Goya says the gallery provides “a more universal experience rather than a local one. We’re not trying to fill a niche. Customers from New York and San Francisco are my biggest collectors. They’re saying we could have this gallery anywhere in the world, not just because of the (caliber of the) artists, but because it’s run by artists and for the way it looks. People who love art love to see art this way. They have a good experience here, and they return before they leave.”

In fact, Goya says he has repeat clients who return annually, and some visit three or four times a year.

“One client owns $100,000 of my work. Art lovers, if they have the means, will purchase what they want. We’ve grown rapidly from featuring four artists to 15, so when customers return they always see something new.”

But it’s not only the financial rewards that motivate these gallery owners.

“This is a gallery that works with artists and collectors,” says Goya. “As an artist, I was not free to meet collectors. Now I know them as friends, and through this gallery there’s a growing sense of community. When we have events here, a lot of artists come in. They interact with each other, have a drink of wine. It’s not just about picking up a check.”

Kikuyama says Paia Contemporary’s success inspires him as an artist.

“They’re refreshing,” he says. “You sort of feel alone because not a lot of artists here are doing their art full time. I’m lucky, but it’s always a challenge and a struggle. It creates a different atmosphere when someone is succeeding.”

IT was just after 10 a.m. and the Paia Contemporary Gallery was getting ready to open. The sun was streaming through the glass storefront, giving everything inside a warm glow. Alejandro Goya, the gallery’s owner, was adjusting a small glass sculpture just a fraction of an angle.

“I’m interested in abstract art, as you can tell,” said Mr. Goya, who was surrounded by crisp white walls and vaguely figurative sculptures, some costing a few thousand dollars. But any notion that this was a high-priced gallery in a big city was punctured when a group of surfers walked past the front door — barefoot, boards under their arms, and wetsuits unzipped to their waists.

Surfing and art mingle a lot in Paia — a blink-and-you-miss-it town — on the north shore of Maui. For years, this old Hawaiian sugar town has been a respite for stoners, surfers and, according to many locals, a certain low-key breed of celebrities like Willie Nelson, the Doobie Brothers, Woody Harrelson and Kris Kristofferson.

In recent years, however, the chill surfer vibe has been joined by a buzzing art scene, with a half-dozen new galleries representing artists like Mary Mitsuda, David Ivan Clark and Udo Nöger. Their works have not only attracted the attention of the international art-collecting crowd, who come here on spending holidays, but also that of major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Meanwhile, boho-chic hotels and fancy farm-to-table restaurants have opened, and a different caliber of tourist (as in the wealthy, art-buying caliber) has started turning Paia into an unlikely destination for contemporary art.

“You have all that exotica, these wonderful restaurants and top-notch galleries,” said Michael Kessler, an artist who lives in Santa Fe but recently had his first show in Paia. “I don’t know any other place like it.”

It’s great to see Father Bill Moore getting some press! This article by USA Today talks about Moore’s Southern California studio space and his calling to be an artist. As you probably already know, we enjoy his work here on Maui’s north shore and feature his paintings at the Paia Contemporary Gallery space. Next time your on the Hawaiian islands, drop by to see some of his work at the gallery! (Click the article image to read more).